


Storyteller

by TimeLordOfManyNames



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Coma, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Psychology, Realization, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-20 02:10:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11326476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLordOfManyNames/pseuds/TimeLordOfManyNames
Summary: Cardassia after the Dominion war. Elim Garak falls into a coma due to a casualty. Julian Bashir flies to Cardassia in a hope to fix everything.





	1. First story

When Julian received his first letter from Cardassia, he was much more delighted than he could imagine. He surmised deep down inside that, once on Cardassia, Garak would be busy with things and deeds far more important than letters, and thus almost didn't count to hear from him that soon — even in response to his own letter in which he was telling the latest news on the station and offering for discussion a new book that Ezri recommended him. All in all Julian held out for about two months before he gave in and wrote him first.

A week later a short subspace message arrived.

Having awaited with difficulty for the end of the shift, because of a mild excitement which with he could do nothing, although considered it incongruous, Julian headed to his quarters almost running, in the quietness of whose he settled himself before the console, anticipating yet another condescending retort about his choice of literature for reading, activated the message and froze. A cold flow ran down his spine, rushing to his heels with all the weight it was capable of.

The letter wasn't from Garak.

 _"Dear doctor Bashir,_

_common decencies and the right to inviolability of private correspondence, respected by us, no doubt impeded us from watching your message for mister Garak, however, its mere arrival, after a careful discussion over the current situation, prompted us to forward you an answer._

_The point is that your friend, mister Garak, was severely concussed during the collapse of one of the buildings which into children were remaining, and at the present moment stays in a coma. Thanks to his efforts, children weren't hurt. But, I'm afraid, in narrow circumstances, that you are undoubtedly aware of, we don't have technologies and specialists that could lead him off this state, considering complications, emerged during concussion._

_Your reputation is widely known beyond the Federation borders, so if you would find possible to lend us a helping hand under conditions of severe shortages of medical personnel, your friend's chances of survival will increase. Mister Garak is attached to a life-supporting appliance for two weeks already, resources are not enough to suffice all the inmates coming to us and, I'm afraid, we'll have soon to choose._

_Yours respectfully and hoping for the further collaboration,_

_the chief of the medical service of the Kar'ssaht district,_

_Coral Tegal."_

"What?" Julian asked thickly aloud as soon as the image faded. He felt himself as if shot by a phaser set to stun.

Garak, who was dreaming about being back to Cardassia for so many years, who would go to any lengths for it, who merely stepped on the ground of his home planet... was in a coma? What kind of unlucky was this man, after all?  

"Cardassians don't believe in luck," Garak's voice whispered in his head.

"But I do," Julian lied frowardly to his imaginary dialog partner.

Julian was lucky, notwithstanding all his misadventures — he was sure of it for the whole of ninety eight point zero zero two per cent. And he was determined to share his luck with the one less fortunate.

Having decided, Julian started packing immediately. He had to formalize it all with the Starfleet command, but he hoped not to find any problem here. Colonel Kira won't be happy, of course, but she would have to face the fact. So as would have Miles, who, even being hundreds of light years away, will not fail to speak out his scepticism against this "totally absurd enterprise". Julian was almost sure that the gloomy irishman would have definitely tried to talk him out, if he were around now, and somehow it augmented his determination.

There still was Ezri... Slowing down for a moment, Julian took a deep inhale and exhaled slowly, considering if he should inform her right away. Their relationship for a long time was far from ideal. If it ever could be regarded as ideal. Somewhere deep inside — so deep that he still wasn't ready to admit it even to himself — he knew that, despite all his words, which he himself strived to believe in, taking desirable for valid, Ezri was to him just a substitute for Jadzia that he failed to get. Ezri — so gentle and compliant — "Is that how you'd like me to be, Julian? So... submissive?" — he remembered Jadzia's reproaches during another bit of a mess in the first year of their working together, when he wasn't still given up on her account... — comparing to the previous Dax's host... was so tempting in her accessibleness. And what was worse, she understood perfectly the nature of Julian's own feelings, albeit they kept playing a game where no one asked questions anymore to not hear the real answers to them.

"You're leaving," she didn't ask, but nodded affirmatively, crossing the threshold of his quarters. "I've seen your transfer request to Cardassia as a part of a volunteer group."

Julian lifted an uneasy and rather guilty gaze at her. Ezri swayed her head and rocked from toes to heels — just like Jadzia.

"Well, it's good," she nodded once again. "It's perfectly normal, Julian, you have nothing to blame yourself for — I knew exactly what I was getting myself into," she looked at him with a long penetrating stare that Jadzia could have. "Maybe the both of us needed this," she made a pause before smiling. "You know what I'm talking about. We never talk about it out loud, but you know," she made another pause, which after a weight seemed to be lifted off Julian's shoulders. "And I know."

"I'm sorry, I should have told you earlier, but I—"

"Couldn't," she nodded again.

"I held off till the last moment, I confess, because—"

"You didn't want this awkward conversation. I understand, Julian. The both of us should move on. Besides, Jadzia always believed that sooner or later you'll end up on Cardassia."

He tore himself away from the PADD with the list of the medical appliances and drugs he intended to take with him again and raised his eyes on her perplexedly. Ezri smiled enigmatically — just like Jadzia when she was throwing ambiguous hints that, like Garak's sneers, almost always remained a mystery to Julian.

"Why?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Maybe because after the Dominion war your skills are needed there most of all. You're quite a talented surgeon, Julian."

He smiled. Her explanation cleared absolutely nothing, since surgeons were needed everywhere these days.

"Take care."

"You too," Ezri's smile, warm and knowing, somehow instilled confidence in him that he can do it. Yet he was considered one of the best surgeons of the quadrant not for nothing.

"And be sure to write me."

"You too."

"I will," Julian promised, recalling doctor Tegal's letter again.

"I'll meet you at the airlock. I think, a lot of people will mind to see you off. I've heard, even Morn was going to come to say goodbye and wish you luck," Ezri winked and Julian laughed.

For the first time in a while she left his quarters without imprinting an iconic kiss to his face. Perhaps, it could be called a silent break up? Apparently so.

Julian finally realized that he was leaving the Deep Space 9 indeed.


	2. Second story

It was hot on Cardassia. Much hotter than Julian had imagined — he arrived in the Kar'ssaht district at the very beginning of summer, when temperatures were rising considerably high while it still was very humid. A young eyesome cardassian met him on a landing ground for shuttles. Her lips were shut tight and the whole of her figure displayed a polite hostility.

"Doctor Bashir," she nodded shortly. "I'm Inayla Zirav, a nurse. Doctor Tegal is too busy to meet new personnel, thuswise she assigned me to take you to the hospital... or rather what's left of it," bitterness sounded distinctly in her voice.

Having nodded silently, Julian followed her. All the instruments and supplies, brought by him, were transported directly to the storage bay, but he himself preferred to take a look at the surroundings, while there was such a possibility. A beautiful view of the mountains was opening from the shuttle and a striking straight in the heart one — of destroyed cities and settlements, smashed by orbital strikes. The Kar'ssaht district looked exceptionally almost untouched. Maybe that's why the hospital was situated here.

"I hope that my help will contribute even just a little bit to the rebuilding of Cardassia," Julian tried to break an awkward silence, dangled between them. "At least, I would like to think so."

The cardassian sniffed distinctly.

"Aren't you here because of the letter? Would you come to help Cardassia if it weren't for the casualty with your... friend?" something in her words sounded weird, perhaps, the universal translator proved to be unable to interpret some wordplay that unclothed a complementary meaning.

"You are right," Julian agreed. "I'm here because of the letter. But it doesn't mean that I'm not going to make every effort to perform my medical duty towards everyone in need and not only my friend," he raised his eyebrows expressively and looked Zirav straight in the eyes.

After few seconds of a silent stares crossing, she exhaled sharply and her features softened.

"Mister Garak is your tinn'lee, isn't he, right?"

"Tinn'lee?" Julian asked back perplexedly. "I'm sorry, the translator hasn't translated this word, and my knowledge of cardassian is still quite limited."

"You were studying cardassian?" Zirav cast a quick curious glance at him, changing the subject.

"To be honest, I started several times, but every time something distracted me. Usually it were yet another station malfunctions or an outbreak of chelto or bajoran flu."

"Mister Garak was tutoring you?"

Julian raised his eyebrows in surprise. This young cardassian was definitely not alike cardassians he met before... except for Ziyal, maybe. But Ziyal was half-bajoran.

"No, but Garak often complained that all the idiosyncrasy of the language and versatility of its sound are lost completely, if one is reading cardassian authors in translation into federation standard," the wind raised a cloud of dust into their faces, and Julian had a fit of coughing, while waiting for the dust to settle down. "So in a way, probably, the idea of learning kardasi came to my mind after his words. Said for the thousandth time, I suppose," he smiled in a hope that it sounded like a joke.

He never found out either it did or not, because their journey came to its logical conclusion. A low building — when compared to structures propping the sky of pre-war Cardassia — stretched both ways and ran up for approximately twenty meters.

"We've got space, but are short of biobeds, instruments, medicaments and most of all — people," Zirav ordered by gesture to follow her and went up the stairs. "The sick and wounded are brought to us from all over the district and several neighboring ones. Most of the buildings are hazardous. Ivarta hospital was lucky — to a certain degree. Only the southern wing is left of it," Julian managed to notice out of the corner of his eye, while entering the opened doors, that to the left side of the building ruins of a structure much taller and larger that must had been the administrative centre and the main block in the past were towering. "It used to be the department of rehabilitation after the major surgeries."

Zirav was leading him through the corridors, giving a tour and describing their current situation as they walked. Doctor Tegal was responsible for this place. If previously doctors had had their medical practice in the Ivarta hospital according to strictly determined disciplines, now it would be a luxury that Cardassia couldn't afford. Officially Julian was appointed to head the surgery department, in practice, however, it wasn't giving him any authorities or advantages — only the status. Much later, after having worked with cardassian doctors side by side for several months, Julian would know that actually the status meant a lot.

"Ivarta was a talented neurosurgeon back at the dawn of the medicine as we know it now," Zirav elucidated. "The hospital was named after her."

Julian absorbed this information, while noting, what exactly he was going to request from the Starfleet command as humanitarian aid in the first place. The hospital was mostly attended because of injuries of varying degrees of gravity — cardassians worked unremittingly, clearing the debris and strengthening the buildings that still could be repaired. There wasn't enough equipment, and a lot of work was performed manually, what led to fractures and limbs loss, breakdowns of soft tissues and other horrors, becoming the scarier the more distinct was Julian's realization that pain medications were not enough to go round.

"Doctor Tegal. Doctor Bashir," Zirav bowed her head in respect, letting Julian in a small dim room with a desk with a built-in console.

An aged cardassian — so slim that she unintentionally reminded Julian of a bolian tissitat — raised her attentive eyes on him.

"Doctor Bashir," she invited him by gesture to sit down, which he did, nodding in greeting. "Words could never say how much I am glad that you heeded my so frankly straightforward appeal," she handed him a PADD. "There's all the information we have about mister Garak's state. I'm aware that in the Federation male scientists are nothing less than female, moreover your genetic enhancements are no secret anymore," she smiled with a corner of her lips, eyeing Julian's face keenly with a watchful stare, "so if there could be done anything else for your... friend, only you can handle it."

It sounded almost weird again, but Julian was grateful that his questions were anticipated.

"And what is a tinn'lee?" he asked suddenly, getting a belated feeling of the impropriety of this question. "I happened to hear this word, and my universal translator failed to deal with it."

Tegal cast a piercing look over his shoulder, Julian turned around and saw Zirav, who didn't leave the room, as he presumed, but waited for him silently at the doors. Several segments of her ridges darkened, barely perceptible.

"Never mind, doctor Bashir," Tegal shifted her gaze back to Julian, drawing his attention to herself, and smiled almost amiably. "And get to work."


	3. Third story

"But I don't understand," doctor Tegal smiled indulgently, as if telling by this smile that such a reaction from a male was not unexpected by her. "According to these data, he should have regained consciousness long ago."

"That's correct, doctor Bashir," she explained patiently, as if dealing with a troubled teenager during the period of development of the secondary ridges. "Except that you're leaving out some specific aspects of your... friend."

"Are you talking about the broken implant in his brain and, as a consequence, about irreparable damage to the brain chemistry?" Julian cast a quick glance at her. "I understand. But he still should have woken up, at the very least, a weak ago. There are no apparent deviations that could prevent such a scenario. Except maybe for..." he suddenly fell silent.

"Except maybe for a hypothesis that, perhaps, mister Garak simply doesn't want to come back to consciousness," she finished a thought, unsaid by him, which Julian dismissed as an absurd one. Garak loved Cardassia far too much to consciously or unconsciously choose oblivion over serving it. "That's correct, doctor Bashir," Tegal caught his amazed gaze and raised her eyeridges a little bit. "This is the main reason of my letter to you."

Julian shook his head.

"But that's impossible. Garak wouldn't..."

The cardassian sighed loudly.

"Listen, doctor Bashir. You undoubtedly know better what your friend would and what wouldn't do, but the facts are that there is an endless flow of sick and heavily injured at my doorstep, and mister Garak is occupying a biobed and consuming resources that could help those, who keep fighting for our future," the phrase seemed to be left unfinished, and Julian shut his lips, opposing inwardly to what was meant by a unsounded coda. "If not for a compassionate approach towards patients, I should have better removed him off the life support as soon as the hypothesis found itself the first proof. Instead of this," she made an impactful pause, designed to enhance the emphasis, "I wrote to you."

Julian ran his hand through his hair, while looking in his mind through the options that this smart cardassian most certainly had already tried out.

"What about the vulcan mind meld?"

"Doctor Bashir," Tegal's look became almost charitable, "do you seriously believe that a man, in the head of which an implant of the Obsidian Order resides, possesses such an untrained mind that the vulcan interrogation techniques can probably yield any results?"

"You know about the Order?"

"Everyone knows about the Order these days, doctor Bashir," she fixed her gaze on his pupils. "And since you managed to shut down a non-operational implant, while still saving the life of your... friend," and yet, yet again this weird emphasis, "then, I presume, you know the Obsidian Order much closer than I do."

"I was a doctor. Garak was my patient," Julian raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "Like now. Nothing extraordinary."

"Nothing indeed," a shadow of a smile slid over her lips, disappearing as surreptitiously as it had appeared.

Julian looked at Garak again. His face seemed calm, though not peaceful as it happened with other people in a coma. Garak's peacefulness had been always a carefully considered expression, most often concealing a veiled menace or an overt aggression beneath itself. Now his features were relaxed, baring sorrow and weariness with the life lived. Could doctor Tegal be right? Could Garak be just unwilling to wake up indeed?

"We tried to seek out his relatives, but sometimes it's very difficult to find someone after the war..."

"He has no relatives left," Julian said bitterly. "His mother and father died, and there was no one else."

"Except for you," Tegal objected somewhat pointedly.

"Me?" Julian smiled. "To tell the truth, I was never completely sure if he even considered me a friend," having noticed the cardassian's observant gaze, he quoted what Garak said once: "Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all."

"Is it mister Garak, who told you that?" she clarified.

"Once," Julian nodded, drawing his attention to bioreadings again.

Doctor Tegal smirked, barely audible, and then kind of drew herself together, putting on a mask of a cold inscrutability.

"Doctor Bashir, I'm offering you a deal."

Well, Julian was ready for this.

"Actually, I expected something of the kind."

The cardassian smiled almost predatory.

"If you weren't, I would have to admit that your intelligence is overrated," she raised her eyeridge just a bit. "I won't remove mister Garak off the life support and will give you as much time however long it takes to make him leave the welcoming embraces of a coma. In return you treat patients on an equal basis with all the other doctors — as many hours as it would be necessary, no indulgences or favours. You will attend to mister Garak in your spare time."

"I expected this too," Julian lifted his head and looked her straight in the eyes. "I brought with myself medicaments and equipment. Not enough to alleviate the plight of all those who suffer, but enough to alleviate sufferings of the few. Also, I'm going to direct a request for pain medications supply as a humanitarian aid. As I understand, the lack of it is most critical for Ivarta now. Or were you allowing a thought that I would be able to watch quietly children and adults being in such a state, which in they are coming here, and would concern myself only with the cardassian brain researches, fencing myself off them with the walls of the laboratory?" he smiled subtly. "As aptly stated by nurse Zirav, I came to Cardassia because of the letter. But in point of fact you had no need to blackmail me."

"One way or another you still would come?" Tegal half-asked, tilting her head thoughtfully.

"One my friend was somehow pretty sure of it," Julian jerked his shoulder. "While I was flying in a shuttle..." he made a pause, not being sure that mentioning of the prevailing chaos wouldn't sound rude, "I realized that she was right."

"Do you really love Cardassia, doctor?" her words sounded ambiguously, but the universal translator failed again to convey something that Julian almost sensed, but didn't catch — as it often happened with Garak.

"I love life. And I think that life is worth fighting for it. Every life."

"They would disagree with you in the military department."

Julian smiled.

"But we are not in the military department."

"Right," a short pause dangled in between. Doctor Tegal's studying gaze indicated that she was about ready to look at Julian from a different angle. "And still, if you hadn't come now — your friend would be so far beyond saving," the cardassian smiled, and this time her smile came in a bit more relaxed than all the previous ones. "So forgive me my endeavour to get you particularly at the disposal of Ivarta. You need your tinn'lee. I need another qualified doctor."

"Tinn'lee?" Julian frowned. "And here yet again—"

"Perhaps, it's time to proceed learning kardasi, doctor?" she seemed to be barely resisting laugher. "Since you're staying on Cardassia."

Julian happened to open his mouth and then to close it. 

"Perhaps."


	4. Fourth story

Very soon it became obvious that all the usual ways didn't work. The cortical stimulator failed to produce the effect needed, chemical stimulation only disrupted the metabolic balance, and Julian had to spend the whole night to rectify his own mistake. The lack of sleep had never been something that he couldn't stand almost unhurt, but sleepless nights were growing in number — the district was overwhelmed by an epidemic, come from the wastewater that poisoned soil, on which grain varieties were planted, so there was simply no time left to conduct additional researches.

Having entered the rooms that had been assigned to him, where, upon Julian's request, a biobed with Garak, staying in a coma, had been moved in for him to be able to monitor him freely at any time of the day or night, he sat on a chair beside, maybe, the hardest of his patients in the whole history of his medical career.  

"Garak, why wouldn't you just wake up? You can do it at any time, I'm convinced of it," Julian sighed wearily and threw back his head. "I read that there's quite an archaic practice of talking to those unconscious. It is intended that something from what was heard can induce them to regain consciousness. Usually this refers to pleasant memories, to plans that people were willing to realize together, to children and lovers that are waiting for their loved one to finally come back to them. But it won't work with you, will it, Garak?" Julian rubbed his face with his palms to hold on without sleep at least a little longer. "What could I remind you about? About our pleasant conversations during lunches on the station that you hated wholeheartedly? It is unlikely that these are good memories for you..." he took the cold palm of Garak, warming it with the hot touch. "Also, I read that sometimes it is enough just to hear a living voice, and it isn't really important, what it is talking about, all that matters is that it is turned to the one, fenced with the wall of unconsciousness," without noticing it, he rested his forehead against the bed's edge and closed his eyes. "What do you say, Garak... is it... our case?" Julian whispered before blacking out.

He woke up to a careful yet persistent touch to his shoulder. Having his head lifted and his gaze not easily focused, he recognized nurse Zirav, standing beside him with an indescribable facial expression that Julian wasn't able to decrypt without a mug of hot raktajino.

"Doctor Bashir, your shift started an hour ago," the cardassian informed him, sliding a fleet glance over his rumpled face and then the biobed. "Have you really spent the whole night like this?"

After shaking his head in a vain attempt to throw off the sleepiness leftover, Julian suddenly realized that he was still squeezing Garak's palm. It was strange that his fingers didn't unclench by themselves when he fell asleep. Having his hand withdrawn, he shook his head again and stood up. Overall, there was nothing wrong with it, but for some reason he got very embarrassed. What if he violated some of the cardassian rules of decorum just due to his ignorance of them?     

"It seems that I got too tired yesterday," Julian muttered muffledly. "Computer, time," the request came out of his mouth automatically, but silence was the response he got. He shook his head for the third time. "I'm sorry, still can't get used to it."

Zirav frowned.

"I'm afraid, I have to take you to doctor Tegal."

"It is not necessary," he raised his hands in a protective gesture. "I'm very sorry that that happened. I am not in the habit of allowing such omissions. But I will take care of what happened myself. No need to bother doctor Tegal."

Of course, raktajino was out of the question.

Doctor Kertlah, who overstayed her shift thanks to him, met Julian with a gloomy stare, boding no good.

"It won't happen again," he started from the doorstep instead of a greeting. "And I'll relieve you an hour earlier tomorrow."

The cardassian narrowed her eyes spitefully, but still nodded shortly, while handing him a PADD with the report on the last shift. There were only ten new patients with fever, and that meant that the epidemic was on the wane. Fortunately, the center of contagion had managed to be swiftly eliminated — poisoned crops had had to be eradicated as had the harvest, the newly burned ground had been handed over for decontamination and revitalization. So it might be expected that the number of hospital visits would be back to its previous normal by the end of the following week. In the last four days sleep became a luxury for the medical personnel, so the sharper Julian felt his guilt before doctor Kertlah.

The feeling like the socialization with colleagues had failed right from the beginning was chasing him, though all of them were irreproachably polite, weren't putting in question his diagnoses and gave their negative disposition away in no way.

Or maybe that was the whole point.

Irreproachable politeness of cardassians had long been a surprise to no one, and it could mean anything.

Lenara Kertlah, who relieved him every evening, was, perhaps, the most gloomy of all, whom with Julian already had a chance to get acquainted, but her art of maintaining records was really an enviable one. Doctors operated on a two-shifts basis and it was hard, but bearable. The rebuilding of Cardassia demanded of its citizens all the forces they could give it, and even those they couldn't give. Among nurses Julian most liked Zirav, notwithstanding her unfriendliness when they first met. To his understanding, she was an assistant and an apprentice of doctor Tegal, so they didn't run into each other on work quite often. Most times it were nurses Dokul and Shassara who worked with Julian — Velysana Dokul was Zirav's age, at least both of them looked equally young, but unlike Zirav she behaved almost haughty, and Rokali Shassara — a silent middle-aged woman, a couple of grey locks in her hair — preferred to communicate by signs, avoiding the contact.

During a short break between examining patients with injuries and checking for vital signs of those lying with fever Julian yet managed to get himself a raktajino. Today he was going to have another tough night. There was no time left for anything other than the main job, and besides, he promised to relieve Kertlah an hour earlier tomorrow — so if he wanted to try analyzing the data concerning Garak one more time, sleep wasn't on his schedule for the next twenty five hours.

Maybe he should have tried talking to him indeed. About anything. Take some book, outrageously inappropriate for Garak's refined literary taste, and read it aloud. Recall a couple of stories from the time of his youth — and the more the better. Invent them at the last. After all, when both of them had been living on the station, Garak had been telling stories to Julian all the time, and who knew — how much truth and how much lies there were in them?

Maybe it was time for Julian to tell stories.


	5. Fifth story

"Hello, Garak," Julian greeted him, taking a seat on a chair beside the biobed. Greeting a man in a coma was weird, but he decided to give it a try and now listened cautiously to his own feelings.

It didn't become less weird.

Having exhaled heavily and stretched his neck and shoulders that became numb over the day, Julian checked routinely on Garak's vitals that remained unchanged and coughed a few times to clear his throat.

"When I was studying in the Academy, I happened to hear one story. Or, rather... more likely to become a bystander of it. There was nothing special about it, but at the time it shook me to the core," a pause followed. "I don't think I've ever told it to anyone," he fell silent, while collecting his thoughts. It was strange to tell about it now, but on the other hand even if Garak could hear him, he could never know if his story was true or not, because it concerned the depth of Julian's heart, and there weren't bugs or surveillance cameras, the data of which could be stolen. "Once I was waiting for my flight to London. It was airless, because something happened to a ventilation system, and unbearably boring, because I forgot to charge my PADD. So I was watching some program about arts on the one of the wide screens that are quite common for lounges — at least, on Earth and its colonies," he shifted a little, taking a more comfortable position. "An aged woman was sitting beside me, and I wouldn't pay special attention to her, if at some point she didn't start crying. A young girl on the screen, who just received a prestigious award in the field of fine arts, barely finished reading her acceptance speech — I had absolutely no idea, what caused these tears, and decided, it was something personal. I felt confused and uncomfortable," Julian shook his head, "I wanted to soothe her, but at the same time I did not dare. Yes," he chuckled, "I wasn't then that persistent yet. At least, not that time. Apparently, having felt my gaze, the woman turned her tear-stained face to me and whispered: "She had never called me mother before." Honestly, I was perplexed even more," Julian made a wide hand gesture, excited by his own story. "How was I supposed to interpret her words? And then it dawned on me. The girl, the girl on the screen had told that everything she'd been able to achieve she owed to her mother. "I apologize," the woman whispered, turning away, but I caught her by her wrist. "No, tell me. I do really want to know," I told her. There were forty more minutes before the flight, and she told me, how twenty eight years ago she had taken an autistic girl from an orphanage, rejected by her birth parents," Julian smiled sadly and shook his head again. "You know, Garak, it is so strange. The evolution of our society, the evolution of the medicine have made significant headway, but there are still parents present, displeased with their children, there are still situations present, which turn out to be irreparable. Mary — let's call her Mary — had taken Ophelia in and raised her as her own daughter," Julian took a sip from a specially prepared mug of raktajino. "Mary had been alone, she had had no one, even a cat, but she had had a wish to make this world better at least for a single person. To somehow establish contact with little Ophelia, who had refused to talk, Mary had started painting. And so, step by step, they had been coming along the challenging road of adaptation — though incomplete — together, but then new researches on the brain had helped to adjust the therapy, and Ophelia had started talking. Only she had called her adoptive mother by name. Always — by name. Mary. And no other way," he made another sip. "But had it really been that important, if Ophelia had been making progress? If she had been painting better and better, after discovering a passion for paints and canvases. You know, Garak, so many in our time go to holoprograms industry and holographic art in general. Those, who choose traditional art, become fewer and fewer, and they are worth their weight in gold-pressed latinum by the Classic Painting Society. That's what happened to Ophelia. She got the recognition she deserved. And Mary got hers," he fell silent, sipping from his mug again. "You would certainly ask me, what is, in my opinion, the moral of this story. But I'm not looking for a moral in it. To me it's a mere example of when the birth parents refuse to fight for their child, there could be found someone else, willing to fight. Of course, Garak, you wouldn't agree, telling something like: "My good doctor, but isn't the moral that Ophelia's parents acted detestably towards their state, while Mary served it devotedly, what for she was rewarded?" or "The parents were absolutely right by abandoning the defective child, the birth of which should had been prevented in the first place, while Mary, for lack of other achievements, probably wanted to assert herself through the good deeds of questionable value", or maybe something else. I don't know, what with would you contradict me, my friend, because you are lying in a coma and refuse persistently to wake up."

The mug of raktajino ran dry. Julian rubbed his face with his palms.

"It isn't going to work, is it?" he asked almost hopelessly in the air.

There was an hour and a half left before he had to go to relieve doctor Kertlah. He could spend this time trying to sleep, but Julian wasn't sure he would find the strength to wake up in time. Having shaken his head to recollect himself, Julian got angry.

"Even if it isn't, don't you even think that I'll get off of you, Garak. Don't forget, I'm "an infuriating pest", as you once put it. So you'll have to listen to my voice until you regain consciousness or until I grow old here!" only when the threat sounded, Julian fully realized the meaning of what he said.

Was he really ready to stay on Cardassia because of... Garak? It had been surprisingly easy to get an assignment as a part of a volunteer group for seven months, but what if Garak would never recover? Maybe, the words of doctor Tegal had a point, and there was no sense in saving the one, who didn't want to be saved?

Julian clenched his fists. It hadn't stopped him last time. It wouldn't this time as well. Elim Garak would regain consciousness, whether he liked it or not. Because every life was precious. Because his, Garak's, life was not a bit less precious than any other. And if to prove him that Julian had to stay on Cardassia...

...then right now, after five mugs of raktajino and several sleepless nights, being not really aware to what extent serious decisions, concerning his own future, he tried to make...

Julian was ready to stay.


End file.
